ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL
Ensuring regular school attendance is one of the most powerful ways you can prepare your child for success, both in school and in life. When you make school attendance a priority, you help your child achieve more, develop healthy life habits, avoid dangerous behaviour and have better chances in life. The acceptable level of attendance at school is 96%. Where children’s attendance falls below this level they will become subject to attendance monitoring and further action.
ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL
If a child is absent due to illness, the parent must telephone on the first morning of absence to report this and should send a note explaining their absence on their child’s return. Failure to contact school correctly will mean the absence is marked as “unauthorised”. Parents should be aware that absences will not automatically be authorised, even where a parent contacts school. Repeated absences reported as illness, where there is no underlying medical condition, will lead to investigation and possible unauthorised absences. Children should not be taken out of school for appointments unless this is absolutely unavoidable. If the appointment cannot be made out of school time, it should be made for as late as possible in the afternoon so that your child can receive most of their day’s education before they go. Repeated withdrawals or failure to attend due to appointments may lead to the absence being “unauthorised”. Parents are not entitled to take children out of school for family holidays. If a child is taken out of school for holidays, their absence will be marked as unauthorised. In the case of children being taken out of school for family holidays, a fine can be issued without a prior warning notice from the Attendance Improvement Service and action can be taken against each parent individually and separately for each child of school age.